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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Yes, my weekend is just ending now. It was lovely. I took 3 days off work, Thursday, Friday, and Monday. That always makes things nice - whether or not I do anything special.

I spent Thursday mostly running errands, etc. Friday & Saturday I spent a great deal of time messing with my newest discovery - photographing my jewelry with the scanner instead of the camera! The pictures are awesome - there is SO much detail!

Now however, I need to find a way to make those pictures cute and or amusing. The detail is truly beautiful, but the only artistic thing about them is the different ways I can find to lay the jewelry out. Not enough. So I will be online looking for ideas for the next week probably, until I come up with something. Hey, for me - the search is always the most fun!

So - the new pictures firmly in place - a really nice lady went shopping at about 3:00am Sunday morning and bought 5 of my pieces!! I was SO excited! Made me feel like the first sale wasn't just a fluke. I will keep pushing on.

Boyfriend was out of town, came back on Sunday and I was able to spend more time than usual with him, so that was really nice. He fixed my birdhouse for me - what a guy! He's great about any heavy lifting I request of him and he asks so little in return. I think I'm gonna keep him!

The boyfriend, JD, also helped me out BIG - with a printer. My base PC died and along with it - the ability to use my old printer with the laptop network we have going here. How sad is it - that when I want to talk to my son the quickest way to get a response is to IM him - when he is in the back of the house and I am in the front? My daughter was in her room one evening and needed to ask him a question, so she picked up her cell phone and called HIS cell phone - again, he was in the back part of the house.

We are fairly wirelessly spoiled here, and then to all of a sudden lose the ability to print was a blow! Now I can print again, thanks to JD - THANKS JD! - and I can copy and fax and I think it may cook dinner for me, I'll have to check. Oh I hope so, I'm not one for cooking very often.

Oh - today I learned how to add the HTML script to put my "mini-etsy" here on my blog. I had gone into Forums on Etsy - and stumbled across a thread about mini-etsy and how to do it. I didn't even know what it was - but I decided to try it anyway! Now - you can see my awesome jewelry pictures and connect to Etsy by clicking on one of those pictures - right here! I wonder how long it will be - before all these little things don't excite me anymore. Hmmmm.

Tomorrow - back to the daily grind. After a while I start to feel at loose ends without work though, so I guess it's a good thing. I wouldn't have minded one more (or 2) day(s) though. :)

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Hello Hello Hello!!! These are the earrings I sold. Still the only thing I have sold online but that's okay. There will be more.

Saturday was my birthday, and my sweetheart girlchild insisted on putting all the candles on the cake! Took 2 people to light them - had to open the front and back doors to prevent the smoke alarm from going off - but I got every last one of those candles out! Hey, I made a wish - I HAD too!

So, my boychild went to a baseball game in Milwaukee, so my daughter and I did some birthday bonding. We slept late - had spinach dip for lunch, ran out and got our hair cut together, and then we colored eggs. It was nice. Nice and slow paced - (except for the spur of the moment haircuts!) My girlie wanted to do something special for dinner but we had ordered Thai food the night before and I wanted my leftovers. Just the kind of girl I am - don't need anything fancy. Later we did the cake and ice cream thing with my girlie, my boychild and my girlie's boyfriend. It was nice, it was a good day.

I received some major encouragement towards a website - my boyfriend has been very helpful, and the beautiful multi-colored roses didn't hurt either!!! His birthday gift to me will help me get set up which is an icredible present! My girlie gave me a beading book and a book on marketing and selling my jewelry. I just want to research before I launch into anything. Keeping some things on Etsy while I'm doing that should keep me in good stead.

I googled myself the other night - shocked the crap outa me! Just typed in BetteJo and I'm all over the place!! Now I just need me to come up when I type in Beads - or beaded jewelry!

OMG Sanjaya is on American Idol! What did he do to his hair this time? He has a spit curl on his forehead! Well, kind of. He has a little goatee and mustache - can't tell if it is freakin' drawn on or what?!!!!! Ugh. What's with this kid? I actually feel bad for him cause I think he believes he's good when he's only being voted for by screaming little girls, all his Indian neighbors and by those who think he's the worst!Oh well, enough bad thoughts. I just feel bad because I don't think people realize that this is a 17 year old boy who is naive and probably too sensitive to find out the bubble he's in right now is all fake. Not fair for him, possibly dangerous to his emotional well-being. Spoken like a mother, right?Jennifer Lopez was fun though, she really helped the contestants - seemed really natural and nice. Anyway. Time for bed. Have a lovely evening!BetteJo

Thursday, April 5, 2007

It's my birthday! It's my birthday! Okay, it's NOT my birthday, but I had my first online sale last night. I loved it! After having my jewelry online for over a month on one site, and moving it to another and selling something in only 2 days - THAT feels great!!

It was only a pair of earrings - but it was something! I think I'm liking Etsy!

At some point I really need to get back to beading - as opposed to advertising my beading. I enjoy the beading and if I feel like it's not all going to sit in my bead room unappreciated - I will enjoy it even more.

Very tired tonight, worked a 12 hour day which is very unusual. Need to get ready for bed and get some sleep for a change. This weekend IS my birthday and my girlchild is coming home. I know she likes her Easter basket, but I'm going to believe she is coming home just for my birthday. :)

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Today has certainly been a learning experience. I have been on the computer ALL day! My butt hurts and sometime today my VCR clock changed time - it apparently rejected the daylight savings time I had changed it to whenever that was. ? So.

I decided that of course it couldn't possibly be that people don't like my jewelry - how could THAT be? So I went on an email campaign, emailing scads of sellers from 'ecrafter' - and I don't think I got a positive response back from anyone. Basically I asked what they thought of the site - if they have had any luck there - etc. One lady, her name is Gloria, said "ecrafter sucks." So - I guess I see where we stand with that.

I decided to hunt around and see what I could elsewhere. I found a site that looked reasonable called artsefest.com. I emailed some sellers from that site - and got a mixed response. There was one that was fairly positive, but the other's seemed mixed. Seemed like people were saying that it was a good site but it was not their primary way of selling. There were a number of mentions of eBay and etsy.

After that I started looking at any website designers - or better yet (and less expensive) sites where you can basically build your own site, manage it, but you pay for the web-hosting and shopping cart stuff - oh - I am such a novice.

I really can't sit here and do this right now, I am somewhat unnerved by everything I learned today after putting links everywhere and working so hard to get my name out there. Now I'm tired - eye strain I'm sure. Going to move on on to something else I'm guessing, another way of selling my jewelry and right this minute - move on to something other than being online! Have a great evening!BetteJo